TS govt working to make Hyderabad as HealthTech Mecca of world: KTR

Hyderabad Telangana government will work on a program to position Hyderabad as the “HealthTech Mecca” of the world, says the Industries and Commerce Minister KT Rama Rao, after the inauguration of BioAsia 2023 here on Friday.

On the occasion, he said: "Through our various incubator programmes, and access to deep computing resources, we will actively support startups that drive the convergence of healthcare and technology. I am confident that we will have a few global Health-Tech unicorns that will emerge out of this programme."

The State government had set out an ambitious vision of doubling the lifesciences ecosystem value to $100 billion by 2030. During the event, KTR announced that the ecosystem value has already touched $80 billion in 2022. This represents a phenomenal ecosystem value growth in the State at a mindboggling 23 per cent over the last two years compared to the national average of about 14 per cent.

He further said, "Given the current momentum, I am confident that we will achieve our target of $100 billion by 2025 itself, five years ahead of schedule. I commend and thank all the stakeholders who have come together to make this happen."

"The growth is evident from the fact that we have been able to attract net new investments of more than $3 billion over the last seven years. During the same period, we have created a total employment of more than 4.5 lakh jobs. Our ultimate aim is to make Telangana, the knowledge capital of the world’s life sciences industry. A key component of this is the growth of the lifesciences services sector. We already serve more than 1,000 companies globally, including the top 10 pharma giants, in their innovation journey," Rama Rao informed.

This is being done through the cutting-edge work being executed by R&D and technology partners like Aragen, Sai, Syngene, Deloitte, Accenture, Tech Mahindra, and others. Almost four of the top 10 global innovator companies now have a direct presence in Hyderabad through their dedicated centers. These centers drive core R&D, digital and engineering activities, thereby contributing to bringing lifesaving cost-effective therapies and devices to patients world-wide.

"Today, Telangana has established it's stature as the world’s pre-eminent lifesciences destination, but I don’t want us to stop here," the minister said, adding "We have a unique opportunity to help reshape the future of the lifesciences industry. We need to dream big. I envision that by 2030, the value of the lifesciences ecosystem will cross $250 billion."

Complex manufacturing at scale, R&D and innovation, building high-end, cross value chain GCCs, and convergence of healthcare and technology are the four pillars that will help the State achieve the audacious target. The State contributes 40 per cent of India’s pharma production and is home to more than 1,000 lifesciences companies and it is growing. This is the only region in the world to have more than 200 FDA-approved sites for pharmaceutical manufacturing which produce both innovator and generic medicines.

The State's capability will be further strengthened with the launch of Hyderabad Pharma City, which is the world’s largest and sustainable integrated pharma park. While the State is continuing to build on its strengths in small molecules, it has also started to make giant leap towards advanced therapeutic modalities.